“And I shall see her again,” he insisted, clinging yet somewhat to earthly feelings and earthly regrets, for was he not but a young and untrained disciple? “It seems to me, that it would be unjust to part her from me for ever. It seems to me that heaven itself would not be heaven away from her!”
“I fear thou art not fit to die,” replied Calchas, in a low and sorrowful voice. “Pray, my son, pray fervently, unceasingly, that the human heart may be taken away from thee, [pg 421]and the new heart given which will fit thee for the place whither thou goest to-day. It is not for thee and for me to say, ‘Give me here, Father, a morsel of bread, or give me there a cup of wine.’ We need but implore in our prayers, of Infinite Wisdom and Infinite Mercy, to grant that which it knows is best for our welfare; and He who has taught us how to pray, has bidden us, even before we ask for food, acknowledge a humble unquestioning resignation to the will of our Father which is in heaven. Leave all to Him, my son, satisfied that He will grant thee what is best for thy welfare. Distress not thyself with weak misgivings, nor subtle reasonings, nor vain inquiries. Trust, only trust and pray, here in the court of death, as yonder on the rampart, or at home by the beloved hearth, so shalt thou obtain the victory; for, indeed, the battle draweth nigh. The watches of the night are past, and it is already time to buckle on our armour for the fight.”
While he spoke the old man pointed to the east, where the first faint tinge of dawn was stealing up into the sky. Looking into his companion’s face, only now becoming visible in the dull twilight, he was struck with the change that a few hours of suffering and imprisonment had wrought upon those fair young features. Esca seemed ten years older in that one day and night; nor could Calchas repress a throb of exultation, as he thought how his own time-worn frame and feeble nature had been supported by the strong faith within. The feeling, however, was but momentary, for the Christian identified himself at once with the suffering and the sorrowful; nor would he have hesitated in the hearty self-sacrificing spirit that his faith had taught him, that no other faith either provides or enjoins, to take on his own shoulders the burden that seemed so hard for his less-advanced brother to bear. It was no self-confidence that gave the willing martyr such invincible courage; but it was the thorough abnegation of self, the entire dependence on Him, who alone never fails man at his need, the fervent faith, which could see so clearly through the mists of time and humanity, as to accept the infinite and the eternal for the visible, and the tangible, and the real.
They seemed to have changed places now; that doomed pair waiting in their bonds for death. The near approach of morning seemed to call forth the exulting spirit of the warrior in the older man, to endow the younger with the humble resignation of the saint.
“Pray for me that I may be thought worthy,” whispered [pg 422]the latter, pointing upwards to the grey light widening every moment above their heads.
“Be of good cheer,” replied the other, his whole face kindling with a triumphant smile. “Behold, the day is breaking, and thou and I have done with night, henceforth, for evermore!”
CHAPTER XV
FANATICISM
While faith has its martyrs, fanaticism also can boast its soldiers and its champions. Calchas in his bonds was not more in earnest than Eleazar in his breastplate; but the zeal that brought peace to the one, goaded the other into a restless energy of defiance, which amounted in itself to torture.